Lockheed Martin was awarded a $53,052,807 from the US Missile Defense Agency for a 36-month period with no options for the Multi-Object Kill Vehicle Technology Risk Reduction (TRR) effort, the US DoD announced on its website on March, 9, 2017.

"This contract represents part of the Missile Defense Agency’s technology risk reduction strategy to improve performance and reduce risk for a gimbaled seeker assembly, integrated avionics assembly, component integration and testing, and an advanced seeker. The work will be performed in Sunnyvale, California; Bethesda, Maryland; and Goleta, California," the US DoD said.

Interceptors equipped with a next-generation Multi-Object Kill Vehicle Technology are designed to negate medium and intercontinental-range ballistic missiles equipped with multiple warheads and/or countermeasures in the midcourse attack phase with a single engaging interceptor missile. Instead of pairing one kill vehicle with one interceptor missile, MKV payloads will allow a single interceptor missile to deliver several kill vehicles.

In 2015, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency awarded contracts to Raytheon, Lockheed-Martin and Boeing to begin designing what is known as a "Multi-Object Kill Vehicle" or MOKV, which could destroy several objects in space with a single launch.

The IS military hopes to begin proof-of-concept demonstrations in late 2017 and a non-intercept flight test in 2018. If successful, the Missile Defense Agency would conduct an intercept test in 2019.